


Bad Blood

by Kalika_Raven



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Hawkeye (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Clint Has Issues, Clint Needs a Hug, Gen, Get Together, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mild Language, Past Child Abuse, Podfic Welcome, Pre-Avengers (2012), Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-25
Updated: 2014-05-07
Packaged: 2018-01-20 19:22:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1522655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalika_Raven/pseuds/Kalika_Raven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint Barton is a seventeen year old, highly skilled assassin-for-hire named Ronin who's trying to catch up with his brother, Barney. To make things complicated, he's kind of on the wrong side of SHIELD and there's nowhere left to run. But then Nick Fury offers him a second chance at redemption and Clint thinks he should take the chance on a new life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm going to try and update this story as often as possible but I work a lot, bear with me ;)  
> The warnings/tags etc. will all be updated as this story progresses and the rating will most likely go up . For the moment, no trigger warnings.

 

Clint Barton didn't know how he managed to get himself into these situations.

It's not like he didn't try to stay off SHIELD's radar. But right now, crouched down beside the shattered window inside an empty cabin of an off-season, and therefore deserted, nudist colony, he had to admit to himself that he probably walked right into this one. He fired a couple blind shots out the window at the man and woman squatting behind the 4x4, just to keep them from inching any closer to the cabin than they already had. To make things worse, his partner, the guy he'd agreed to split the money with for helping him take out their target (who, as it would turn out, had never come here to begin with), was bleeding out in the corner between the blown-out window, the wall and an ancient television set. The gunfire paused suddenly and Clint stood stock-still with his back pressed against the wall.

And then a man's voice was blasting calmly through a megaphone.

“Ronin, we are SHIELD, the Strategic Homeland--” Clint rolled his eyes. He fired a warning shot at the 4x4 as The Suit ducked back but the bullet punched harmlessly through the hood of the truck, two feet off target.

If he'd really wanted to the bullet would have found it's target but what he really needed right now was to think. At the same time, the woman with the dark hair retaliated, popping off a few quick rounds but Clint was taking cover again. He looked at Zedd, who was only a few years older than him, now sitting slumped amidst the broken glass and blood pooling on the floor.

“We don't want to hurt you, Ronin,” the man on the megaphone was back with that unflappable calm. “Give us your full cooperation and things don't have to get any uglier. If you agree to our terms, kick your gun out of the open doorway. You have until the count of five.

 _One_...”

“Ronin,” the dying man held out a hand to him, hissing beneath his breath.

“... _Two_...”

Clint stared at his partner, weighing his options even though he already knew that Zedd wasn't getting out of this place alive, and he couldn't be Clint Barton right now.

“... _Three_...”

 _Barton_ was a kid he'd left in a loveless house in Waverly, Iowa, a lanky blonde orphan who used to sweep out the animal cages at Carson Carnival. Before he could think of a half-right apology to give him, Zedd's head was falling back onto his chest.

“ _Fou_ \--”

The voice stopped mid-sentence as something small and silver arched through the window, landing with a light metallic _thump_ onto the floor, bouncing and rolling into the middle of the bullet-riddled living room. “Shit,” Barton jumped up, recognizing it instantly.

Time to abort.

Keeping his head down, Clint leapt through the kitchen window as a deafening bang rent the air, followed by a lot of smoke and blinding white light that he didn't have to see to feel.

Damn but SHIELD technology was _good_.

He had no time to stop and think as he rolled off the back porch, landing on his side on top of a fuck-ton of glass pieces. He kicked a hole in the plastic lattice beneath the deck, ignoring the stinging and the blood starting to run down his arms as he crawled under. With his boot he pressed a large section of the lattice back into place as he heard footsteps enter the house.

“One target down,” said the woman, speaking coolly, possibly over a comm unit. Clint listened carefully, tracking his tail's movements: only two sets of footsteps. There was a brief pause and Clint imagined the woman leaning down to check Zedd's pulse and examine his face. “It's not Ronin! He's gone.”

“Everybody search the area. Sitwell, you and your team check the cabins on either side of us,” barked the man into his comm unit. “Gretzky, maintain birds-eye view from your position. Tell us if you see any sign of Ronin. May,” he added, furious. “We'll talk about that little stunt you just pulled later.”

“You were giving the target too much time to run,” the woman stated, making it clear that she didn't give two fucks.

“Just start looking.”

“I'll check the house. You look outside”

Footsteps emerged on the porch above his head.

Ronin crawled forward on his stomach to the other end of the deck, careful to stay quiet and control his breathing. A moment or so later, someone dropped down directly ahead of him. All he could see of him through the lattice was a pair of shiny black shoes and neatly hemmed black pants. The guy, whoever he was, paused as he absorbed his surroundings. For several seconds which felt more like minutes, Ronin waited, his breath hitching in his throat. The pair of legs moved away to approach the next cabin, discovering a loose panel in the wooden fence that happened to be tipped open slightly. Clint watched the guy put two and two together and pry the board back, swinging it open on a single nail.

He slipped through into the next yard, the boards scraping back into place behind him.

Clint breathed a sigh of relief; he was surprised that worked actually. No matter how many times he'd _rendezvoused_ with S.H.I.E.L.D, he still didn't like getting too close.

 *

Fifteen minutes, maybe a half hour, later, Clint was still making slow progress around the camp grounds: ducking behind trashcans, slipping through the wooded areas and a couple of sheds. There was a close-call in an empty swimming pool. Barton held his breath, pressing himself against the concrete wall as an agent went stock still above him. He was pretty sure it was that woman from earlier. An agonizing minute stretched out, and Clint didn't dare to move even if it meant getting a hand on his gun.

But then the boot-steps were heading away as she spoke into her comm unit, “No sign of Ronin outside the rec center. Heading into the indoor areas now.

Clint let out a slow, shuttering breath. _Shit_ , _that was too close_...

 *

He must have made a wrong turn somewhere, maybe he'd gotten too out in the open.

He had made it all the way down the trail to the lake and was starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel before his luck went south. There was a small restaurant next to a high chain link fence that closed off the road. Which meant on the other side of the fence was his quick exit out of this resort.

He jumped the fence and started to scramble his way to the top, a sound like thunder cracked the air wide open. He heard it, a terrifying nanosecond before he felt it cut into the skin of his left leg and bury itself into his calf. It wasn't just his leg though. The taser barb spiked a current through his whole body that made his muscles contract and spasm violently. It slammed through him, or maybe that was the hard asphalt coming up to meet him, making the stars explode behind his eyes the moment his head hit the ground.

He didn't scream, he didn't even struggle and soon after a warm hand slipped around the back of his neck, because his motor skills seemed to have been completely shot. Through his fuzzy vision he made out the soft outline of a man leaning over him, and the voice in his ear almost sounded tender and apologetic.

“We're not here to hurt you Ronin. We just want to help you.” And Ronin – Clint – kind of wanted to believe the guy because there was something in his voice that seemed sincere but maybe that was the concussion thinking for him.

He had the vague feeling of being lifted, before he sank into a heavily sedated sleep.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is so short! I'm still working on it. Promise :)
> 
> Thanks so much for all the positive responses/feedback!

“But is it worth the risk?” Sitwell had asked Coulson, some time after the field team split up and boarded separate jets.

An unconscious Ronin was strapped down to a gurney as a safety precaution, while the team medic scanned his vitals. Jasper kept his voice low, confidential but Phil knew May was listening in as she directed the transport back to Manhattan. She'd remained tight-lipped about the whole thing and Phil knew better than to try and appease her until after they'd landed, wait a day or two, let it blow over, then offer an olive branch in the form of a plate of cookies and a small card or something.

“He's young. He can be helped. And SHIELD can always use someone with his skill set.”

“I admire your optimism,” said Jasper with a reassuring nod. “I just hope you know what you're getting into.”

And truthfully, so did Phil.

After returning to HQ, Phil had been up most of the night for the facial scans to come up with a positive ID on one Clinton Francis Barton. The heavily sedated Ronin had been moved to a make-shift room in the middle of science lab D – which sometimes acted as medical – while Phil spent the next eight hours piecing together the kid's entire life for the barrage of paperwork that surely followed taking in juvenile assassins.

He was seventeen. There had been some abuse in his background, neglect, childhood trauma, a history of 'emotional and disciplinary problems' (according to school therapists), as well as problems with authority figures, all things that would have to be factored into the psych evaluation if Barton was to be allowed into SHIELD custody, if not just for his own protection.

Even stranger than being a highly-skilled marksman at age seventeen, he realized, was the huge gap in the timeline. Between the time of his disappearance and now, there was no data. No public records. Nothing after he and his brother had run away. It didn't help explain where Barton had acquired his skill set. It was puzzling, to say the least. But he could put those questions on the back burner for now. After about two years, the police drew up conclusions. The case was closed. The world moved on, like it always did.

“I don't know why you do this to yourself, Phil.”

Phil looked up to see May standing in the doorway, a steaming mug in her hands.

“I didn't hear you come in.” Phil sat back in his chair, relieved that he didn't have to bribe her to speak to him again after all.

May sighed and walked in. “I thought you could use this,” she said, setting the coffee on the corner of his desk. Phil glanced down at the mug, affectionately. He couldn't help the small chuckle at the sight of the red, white and blue shield adorning it, appreciating the humor. When he looked at the time, he wasn't surprised to see it was nearly two in the morning and he'd been staring at a computer screen for so long that his eyes were burning.

“How's our delinquent coming along?” asked May.

She leaned over his shoulder so that she could see what he was working on so intently. Paperwork, mostly, footage from security cameras, photographs, etc. One of which grabbed her attention. Without asking, May tapped the screen with the tip of her finger and the computer responded, making one particular photograph fill up the monitor.

The picture was faded, creased, obviously quite old. It showed two boys, somewhere around the ages of sixteen and eight years – according to the date and time stamp showing in the lower right hand corner. Which meant that it had been taken several years before a drunk driving accident killed both of their parents.

May was quiet while she took in the minute details of the picture, analyzing it, the way she was good at. Before a soft, barely perceptible exhale left her lips. Phil might not have even noticed it, had she not been standing quite so close.

“That bad, huh?” she said.

Phil made no comment. It was difficult to know what to say in these situations. Things like shock, disgust and anger tended to make agents less competent in the field, so with years of carefully honed control, he'd learned to ignore those knee-jerk reactions. But that didn't stop his gut from clenching up into small knots right now. Because there were some things that you just couldn't become immune to, and child-abuse was definitely one of them. As if seeing a sixteen year old drinking from a bottle of Hiram Walker wasn't troubling enough, the younger one – his face still recognizable as Ronin's – sported a bruise on his cheek the size and shape of a grown-man's fist.

“No wonder the kid's got such a thick skin,” said May. And Phil didn't miss the ghost of resentment in her voice, no doubt still angry that someone like Barton, with no apparent military background, whose entire repertoire consisted of free-lance vigilantism and contract killing, had managed to give SHIELD the slip on more than five occasions.

“He's talented. And he has good instincts,” said Phil. “It was pure luck when I caught him. He's an incredible marksman.” The first time Phil watched Ronin shoot with a bow, somewhere in Washington, months ago, it had been ... astonishing.

Ronin could run, leap and make flying back flips look like child's play. He could also find his focus, aim and shoot at targets while falling, which made Phil realize early on that the kid had amazing hand-eye coordination. And somehow he always managed to outrun all of his best agents. So it hadn't been exactly a stretch to think the kid wasn't entirely human, and Fury made finding him a top priority after that.

Turns out he _was_ human, and just as fallible. And the only question Phil was left with now was how did someone like Ronin – Barton gain his skill set?

“What did you tell Fury when you talked to him?” said May.

“I _might_ have raised a few points during the debrief about why it's preferable to have someone like Barton working for us... instead of against us.”

A long silence followed. “Are you really serious about bringing him into SHIELD?” asked May after a while. “About making him an agent? Do you really think he'll go for that?”

Phil paused. “Do you mean Fury... or Barton?”

May smirked. “Barton. I can already guess what Fury thinks.”

Honestly, Phil had no idea. “When I was Barton's age, Nick showed up and offered me a choice – a chance which I took – to join SHIELD. It changed my life. Sometimes I wonder what my life would've been like had I said no.”

“Why didn't you?”

Phil was quiet, pursing his lips a little as he thought back. “I guess, what with the way things were going – high school drop-out, dad dead – it wasn't like I stood to lose much. Turns out, it was the best decision I ever made... I just want to give someone else that chance.”

Phil was taking a risk on Barton. May knew it. Sitwell knew it. But it was a risk he was still willing to take if it meant saving the kid's life. And the truth was that top brass had a long list of prerequisites, requirements that dictated who SHIELD did and did not take into their fold. And Barton only filled out about a dozen of those, which was less than half.

But ultimately, it was still Nick Fury's decision. That, at least, left him hopeful.


End file.
